


Maybe Under Some Other Sky

by sayhitoforever



Category: Bleach
Genre: A Dash of Pining, Arrancar Ichigo, M/M, Shinigami Captain Grimmjow, a pinch of friendship, a soupcon of suffering, an overflowing cauldron of angst, chicken soup for the damned, i said what i said, nuthin but angst, reverse au, straight suffering from beginning to end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:01:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25195096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sayhitoforever/pseuds/sayhitoforever
Summary: It’s true, when all is said and done. Grief is the price we pay for love.Reverse AU - Shinigami Captain Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez/Arrancar Ichigo Kurosaki
Relationships: Grimmjow Jaegerjaques/Kurosaki Ichigo
Comments: 28
Kudos: 179





	Maybe Under Some Other Sky

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Copperscript](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Copperscript/gifts), [MaethoMixup](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaethoMixup/gifts).



> A homage/trade fic to the Arrancar AU that Copperscript and I spitballed back and forth for like four days of Ichigo as an Arrancar and Grimmjow as the Captain of the 9th Squad (yeet Tosen), tortured after saving Grimmjow from an attempt on his life. Grimmjow smuggles him back to Hueco Mundo to protect him and, well, you'll see.  
> The pain and the grief of this fallout was too much for me not to want to try my hand at. Summary is a quote by E.A. Bucchianeri.
> 
> I hope it hurts as good as you asked for it to, darling ❤️ 
> 
> This absolutely gorgeous banner is a gift from the other half of my brain, my soul sista, the utterly talented MaethoMixup. ❤️

* * *

The silence of the empty cave speaks volumes.

In the hush of the barren Hueco Mundo desert, where Grimmjow had expected to find a still healing Arrancar huddled in the safety of the stone recess, there is nothing and no one. The shoddy kido he had cast upon the entrance to stop intruders is broken, not a shred of Grimmjow’s reiatsu lingers on the rock. He takes a step forward, propelled by curiosity despite the twisting sensation that has started in his guts. There’s not even a whisper of Ichigo’s reiatsu where Grimmjow had lain him, _left him_ , not a single trace that he had even been here. It takes an agonizing moment for the logic, the reality of it all, to cut through his knee-jerk reaction of denial.

The truth might as well be written on the walls in his blood.

No sword, no reiatsu, no way to defend himself. Grimmjow hadn’t just led a lamb to slaughter, he’d _left_ a lamb to the slaughter. To _everything_ in Hueco Mundo that would look at an Arrancar, a Hollow, such as Ichigo and see a defenseless meal kept behind a paper thin kido barrier. Ichigo who had clung to his haori with all the strength of a newborn kitten, who had whispered a litany of apologies in a broken voice into the crook of Grimmjow’s neck as he had shunpo’d towards the Kuchiki Manor in a blind rush. There was nothing else that could have been done, no other options that Grimmjow knew of to get him out of Seireitei, out of the Soul Society, somewhere he could be safe. To think that the only respite he could think of had been the realm of _Hollows_.

Grimmjow stares out over the endless, rolling dunes and sees nothing, senses nothing. Just a frigid horizon where the black sky meets the white sand and the moon that hangs crooked, unwaning. A ringing has started in his ears, dull but growing shriller by the moment. Grimmjow may be a fool, but he’s not daft: he can put the pieces together just fine, though the picture leaves him gripping at the lapels of his shihakusho, gasping in a ragged breath that rumbles in his chest like a death rattle.

The Senkaimon doors part with a hiss, and no one is on the other side as Grimmjow staggers backwards into the empty room of the Kuchiki Manor. They slide shut on the vision of that inhospitable desert, of the mausoleum that it might as well be now. No one stops him as he lurches along the river that runs through the Kuchiki grounds, not a guard, not either of the manor inhabitants, no one. He can hardly get his eyes to focus, a tunneled blur as he makes his way towards the exit. The gate groans as it slams shut behind him, closing him out, leaving him alone in an empty, Seireitei street. He’s still gripping his shihakusho, still gulping in shallow, insufficient breaths.

“Captain Jaegerjaquez,” a soft voice calls to him from the shadows and he whirls around, half-drawing Pantera on a blind instinct. He’s gripping her hilt so hard his knuckles hurt, pressed bleach-white against his skin, as he takes in the unflinching silhouette of Retsu Unohana.

There’s still a keening in Grimmjow’s ears, and every breath he draws in feels like someone has him in a chokehold. The pain in his chest is so much worse than when Aizen gutted him, because it’s an _emptiness_ , a visceral hollowness, like he’s been carved open again and all the important shit has fallen out. Throat and mouth like they’re full of white sand, eyes burning as they watch his fellow captain’s cautious approach. His hand is shaking as he let’s go of his sword, but he barely feels it, just the frigid numbness as it sets in and the aching mantra that has started up in his veins of he’s gone, he’s gone, _he’s gone._

_It can’t be, it’s not fair, not like this, he can’t be gone._

Unohana is cradling something in her arms, something long and narrow that she’s wrapped delicately with the careful hands of a healer, tied with a strip of twine like the loop of a suture around the wrappings so it holds. Her expression is somber and for someone so ancient, old enough to know all the cruel, cold ways of the universe and how to keep them locked tight inside, her eyes betray everything. The solemn grief visible in her dark blue gaze feels like a blade between his ribs.

“Retsu,” he manages to murmur through chapped lips as she stops before him. His own voice sounds tinny to his ears, far away somehow. He knows what he must look like: an unfocused, thousand-yard stare of crystal blue gazing down at the parcel in her arms that she holds like something priceless, something irreplaceable. Skin as washed-out as his haori, with a pulse thumping in his throat that feels too slow, too sluggish, like the whole world has slowed down. Narrowed down to this fixed point of barely numbed anguish.

“This belongs to you,” she says gently, and the quiet sorrow in her voice makes Grimmjow’s chest ache like he’s been flayed open. “It did not feel right to me, to leave it with Captain Kurotsuchi and the 12th.”

The bundle she lays in his arms, so gently, as though it were a child, is heavier than he thought it would be. Grimmjow curls his fingers around it, trying to feel what he has been given, but the cloth has been wrapped around it several times, padding whatever lies within. He picks his head up, the effort feeling monumental, to fix her with a look of pure misery and a little confusion. The dappling of cold moonlight across her reduces her to a scale of chromatics, all dark hair and pale skin and dark eyes. And they are standing close enough that Grimmjow can see himself reflected in that kind gaze, so small and insignificant and _useless._ He drops his eyes back down to what he has been handed, to the delicate twine that holds it all together.

“Do not go back, Grimmjow,” she whispers, a warm hand coming up to cup his cheek though he does not look up from what she has placed in his shaking arms. “There is more at work here than is right, crimes that must be answered with justice. Your absence would be noted.”

A sharp zing of adrenalin streaks through his bloodstream, like a shooting star, and he knows he should look up, acknowledge what she has just confessed. That she believes _Grimmjow,_ that she knows something is remiss with Aizen’s story, the lies he has so carefully fed the rest of the seated Gotei members. But he cannot look away from what he holds, what she has given to him, because it strikes him then, in that moment, what it has to be. The only thing it could be.

_She knows._ And not only had she been waiting out here for Grimmjow because she must have known that he’d try to go back, but she’d prepared. So, there was all that age-old wisdom, all the explicit knowledge of a healer, to look at someone who had been injured in any capacity and be able to gauge the likelihood of their survivability. She’d taken one look at Ichigo had just _known._ Unohana had probably known since she’d left the door to that torture chamber open for Grimmjow to sneak into that Ichigo wouldn’t— that he probably wasn’t going to—

_Gone. He was gone._

“Do not let the choices he made to save your life be a waste.” The pad of her thumb sweeps along the paper-thin skin beneath his eyes, feather-light, before falling away. “Rest, Captain Jaegerjaquez. There is work still to be done.”

A whisper of robes is all that heralds her departure as she leaves him outside the gates of the Kuchiki Manor in the lonely moonlight, burdened with grief, guilt, and the gift in his arms. He lurches forward, a few Shunpo is all it takes to carry him back to his own quarters, back to the privacy of his own space. All the lights in his office are doused, and his legs feel boneless as he sinks down to the couch that he never uses, the same one that he would force Ichigo to curl up on whenever he found the Arrancar on the floor, or up on the roof. Grimmjow rests the bundle across his knees. The light that streams in through the window behind him is cold, sterile, shedding a beam across his lap. With quaking fingers, he plucks at the knot, lets the twine hit the floor at his feet, and begins to unwrap the cloth.

When they had first crossed paths all those many months ago in Hueco Mundo, Grimmjow hadn’t been given the opportunity to marvel at the blade Ichigo wielded. He’d been too busy dodging its deadly edge, too busy trying to stay just out of its reach. And even after Ichigo had been captured, subjugated and forced to take on a form less threatening to the Shinigami he was obliged to live among now, Grimmjow had not been able to appreciate that which had tasted his own blood. It had been taken from Ichigo, locked away, in order for him to be as defenseless and powerless as possible. Or so they had thought.

The sound that wrenches out of him without his permission is somewhere between a half-strangled howl of rage and a dry sob. A choking, guttural reaction as he peels the last layer of cloth away from the weapon in his hands. _Ichigo’s_ weapon, his sword, his zanpakuto, a piece of his very soul. The _last_ piece of his soul.

The sword is as stunning as it is gruesome, precisely as he remembers it. Black as midnight, black as the starless sky that reigns over Hueco Mundo, wicked long and razor sharp. The sharp geometrics of the manji guard, the red that is lain into the woven black of the hilt, the broken, ebony chain that rattles from the end of it, clinking softly as the links move in their wrappings.

A burning ache blooms in his throat and it feels like fire as he tries to swallow it down, scorching a trail through his chest, down into his guts. Hot tears waver at the edge of his waterline, unshed, as he moves one hand out from beneath the wrappings and reaches for the hilt of the sword. Grimmjow has never held another person’s sword, Shinigami or Arrancar or whatever they classified _him_ as. It has always struck him as something almost unholy, a sacrilege to lay his hands on a piece of someone else’s soul. But the soul that owns this blade, _owned,_ will never know now.

With shaking fingers, Grimmjow brushes the woven hilt of the black blade, sliding them beneath to get a proper grip. A whisper of Ichigo’s reiatsu steels up his fingers, a caress of crimson-limned black that ghosts up Grimmjow’s arm, through his shihakusho sleeve, dances it’s way around his neck once, before slipping below his collar to settle against the scarred skin over his heart. It pulses like a fluttering heartbeat once, twice, thrice, before it dissipates, leaving him cold and alone. It feels so much like long nights bent over paperwork he couldn’t pawn off, Ichigo standing behind him sometimes, watching him work, a lingering, constant presence. The restraints they had shackled his wrists and throat with had squashed his reiatsu signature down to nearly nothing. But standing in a room just the two of them, Grimmjow had always been able to feel the thrum of all that repressed power. A lifeforce, a warmth he had grown to depend on, without even realizing it.

Grimmjow didn’t even get to say goodbye. Didn’t even get to say he was sorry. Didn’t even get to say thank you.

_Thank you for trusting me, thank you for protecting me, thank you for holding your ground. Thank you for being unwavering, for being unflinching in the face of everything, for being patient with my sharp edges, for being you._

Grimmjow must be shaking again because the chain bolted to the end of Ichigo’s sword is rattling, a soft jingle of metal just barely audible over the ragged breaths he’s gasping in. He wants to scream, he wants to bellow his rage and his anguish to the stars, like a wolf howling pitifully up at the moon. It _burns,_ his chest burns like he’s inhaled the Captain Commander’s flames right into his lungs, like he’s swallowed the sun.

**~**

Renji Abarai and Rukia Kuchiki all but accost him in an alleyway a few days later, Rukia’s face all screwed up with rage to distract from the way her bottom lip is quivering. They both stare at him with searching gazes, and it is an awful thing to have to watch both of their shoulders slump simultaneously, like deflated gigai, the life rushing right out of them. Little pipsqueak Rukia had lunged forward and given Grimmjow a hug tight enough to bruise and Abarai had hung his head behind her in solemn silence. No words were exchanged, they were hardly necessary.

Grimmjow must have looked defeated enough for them both to assume the truth.

_He’s gone, he’s gone, he’s gone. I’m sorry, it’s all my fault. I should have protected him. I should have saved him. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. He’s gone, he’s gone, he’s gone._

**~**

And the months that pass are like a festering wound, scrubbed chockfull of salt until there isn’t a single part of Grimmjow that doesn’t ache with an emptiness that will not abate, no matter what he does. He does not go back to Hueco Mundo, just as Unohana had counseled, but the energy it takes to resist doing so for the first few weeks is exhausting. It’s a siren song always, echoing like it’s trapped in a void within him. Nothing distracts his mind: it wanders in meetings, completing paperwork, while he meditates. No blood he bleeds is enough for the grief to run out of his veins, to run it’s course the way a disease should, the way this feels like a sickness he can’t shake.

Atop Sōkyoku Hill is where Unohana finds him often, when she feels compelled to search him out, standing on the cliff’s edge to stare out at what has always felt like the edge of the world. Up there they are practically invisible. Up there they can speak freely between the two of them, attempt to turn the cogs of their own plot to expose what Aizen had done to Grimmjow, what he had framed Ichigo for. The thing that ultimately led to Ichigo’s—

“There’s no proof,” Grimmjow grounds out one afternoon, a breeze tussling his hair, strands of it tickling his forehead. “It’s my word against his. Me, who threw their lot in with a _Hollow._ ”

“There is always proof somewhere,” she insists with a fervor much unlike her, an unyielding sort of strength. “And there are those who are already swayed from his lies to our truth.”

Grimmjow wants to scoff, he wants to break something, he wants to rage, he wants to _destroy._ Everything, everything, _everything_ . But he can’t, he shouldn’t. Retsu is right, as she is always right. There is something, somewhere there is the proof that proves Grimmjow’s claims. Enough to end that fucking traitor for what he did, what he tried to do. _Aizen_. Aizen who gets to _live,_ who gets to have his nice things, and all the fools who trust him, value him, respect him. Ichigo is _dead, gone, devoured._ Grimmjow doesn’t even realize that he’s shaking, that his hands are in white-knuckled fists at his sides until Unohana’s shoulder bumps amicably against his.

“It’s okay, you know,” Unohana begins in a faltering voice, her usual soft tone taking on an edge of hesitancy. Grimmjow slides his gaze from the sprawl of Seireitei to her profile to acknowledge her. “It’s okay if you loved him.”

Grimmjow’s entire world narrows down to a single point, tunnels as his head spins and a spray of static feels like it goes through his entire body. He parts his lips to say something, to refute what she’s just claimed, but the words stick in his throat and all that comes out is a breathless huff. She’s looking right at him now, but he’s already looked away, a swirl of cherry blossoms from the Sakura trees at the base of the hill dancing along his periphery.

_Loved him?_

“I—” Grimmjow begins to say, voice but a scratchy whisper as it rasps out of his throat. His head spins, vision swimming, the kind of lightheadedness that usually comes from blood loss.

_What else could it have been?_ a voice screams in the back of his mind, sounding not unlike Pantera herself. _We would have fought beside him, we would have fought for him, we would have protected him for as long as he stood beside us._

_We would have died for him._

_What is that, if not love?_

But it wasn’t enough. Maybe Grimmjow had loved him, _did love him still._ It wasn’t enough. Not enough to protect him, not enough to keep him safe, not enough to give him a life he deserved. Not enough to save him. Grimmjow doesn’t realize he’s listing forward, swaying with the wind, so awfully close to the cliff’s edge, until Unohana’s hand grips his bicep with iron strength and keeps him on his feet.

“We will make sure that the memory of him that people carry is of how you saw him, how he truly was.” Unohana’s voice feels like an ambient hum, like he’s trapped in that infernal, reiatsu-devouring prison where they’d kept Ichigo after Aizen’s attack, like she's whispering into the void that he has become. “Unfailingly kind, brave, devoted, and worthy of love.”

**~**

It’s like a flame he keeps for years after. On the nights when he can’t sleep, the ones when he doesn’t move to the rooftop to Ichigo’s once favored spot to watch the stars and listen to the life of Seireitei. The nights when he clears his desk completely, and tends to Pantera, cleaning her diligently, oiling her blade, even meditating when he has the mind to. When he sheathes Pantera once more is when he withdraws Ichigo’s blade from the locked chest behind his desk to lavish the same attention on it.

And if Pantera minds the way he tends to Ichigo’s blade, the reverence he pays it, she says nothing. It is more than mere tacenda, but they never tread there. This is a duty Grimmjow has sworn to uphold, a vigil he keeps over the black blade and the soul it once belonged to. 

It’s a flame he keeps in his chest, his lungs like bellows for the blaze, gasping out smoke each time he snarls the truth into the faces of those who dare to disbelieve him. This fire is just as much a weapon as Grimmjow’s own sword, as the sword he keeps all to himself. The idea consumes him, the destruction of Aizen as penance for what he did, as retribution for Ichigo. He pours every spare moment he has into compiling the proof, convincing the people that matter, building his pyre to raze every last shred of untruth to ash. 

**Author's Note:**

> Copperscript has posted two chapters of the 'every day' life of Grimmjow and Ichigo in this AU, you can read those [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25156126). Also, the main AU has started as well! You can read that [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25385194). Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoy all of it!


End file.
